Recoil diffusers have been widely used with respect to weapons of all types including personal weapons such as shotguns or, with respect to guns, rifles, and howitzers; all intended to ease the impact or shock caused when the weapon is fired. With respect to personnel weapons, the purpose is to reduce injury to the individual shooter, both to the shoulder and to the face which is frequently impacted due to the need for aiming. With respect to larger ordinances, recoil impact cannot only displace the weapon relative to its aiming lines, but can cause in time damage to the mechanisms of the weapon. To ease these problems, a variety of solutions have been attempted, including the simple addition of mass which itself alters the recoil characteristic. With respect to larger weapons, pneumatic, hydraulic, spring-loaded masses, and various combinations thereof have all been employed. With respect to personnel weapons where weight and balance are critical, particularly with respect to skeet and trap shooting, added weight and weight placement becomes a design problem. Even so, a host of commercial recoil diffusers have evolved. Some use metallic liquid such as mercury which may be caused to flow through a constriction driven by a recoil impact such as taught in U.S. Pat. No. 3,335,515. Others use weight in the form of a movable slug against the body of a spring such as in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,381,405; 3,300,889; and 3,290,815. Liquid metal is both expensive and toxic as well as being difficult to contain over time. Mechanical springs are useful but require lubrication to avoid sticking or hanging up, particularly with respect to long periods of non-use and under field conditions, heat, cold, moisture, and the like.
With the foregoing background, it is to be understood that the present invention has as an object an improved recoil diffuser for use with weapons, particularly personnel weapons. It is a further object of the invention to provide a recoil diffuser which operates differentially in reacting to the high velocity impact forces associated with explosives and propellants as used in present day ammunition. It is still a further object of the invention to provide a low-cost and highly reliable recoil diffuser of a design optimizing shape versus performance and weight through novel geometries of the constituent parts.